What new tourism concepts are needed to keep visitors coming to Singapore?

VISITOR attractions are a key pillar of tourism and Singapore already boasts several world-class and award-winning attractions. The recent years have seen the opening of the River Safari and the Gardens by the Bay and it is important to keep innovating to create new attractions with more immersive experiences since Singapore does not have natural wonders to attract tourists. Perhaps the STB can do more to work with industry players and support some of these major developments to come.

Next, staging exciting nationwide events has been another strategy that has worked well for Singapore tourism. Bringing the F1 Grand Prix to Singapore was a major coup and we should look into bringing other high-profile international sporting events to our country, especially with the opening of the new Sports Hub. Telecasting such major sporting events to an international audience will certainly raise Singapore’s profile on the world stage.

We could also rev up participation in international festivals around the world, such as the recent Copenhagen Cooking, one of Europe’s leading food festivals, where we sent five Singaporean chefs to showcase their culinary talent.

Through such events, we are able to share a slice of Singapore culture with these foreigners and hopefully entice them to visit our city.

Finally, the MICE industry is another important contributor to Singapore tourism. Singapore was ranked ”Asia’s Top Convention City” for the 12th year running in 2013, according to the latest global rankings by the International Congress and Convention Association – attracting 3.5 million MICE visitors with an estimated expenditure of S$5.5 billion in 2013. We should, therefore, continue to develop the city further as a MICE destination and bid more aggressively to host more eminent world summits and congresses.